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> What did the CPG companies think was going to happen when they dumped a billion tiny little pieces of plastic directly down the drain? They clearly thought i
by mhurron 11y ago
> What did the CPG companies think was going to happen when they dumped a billion tiny little pieces of plastic directly down the drain?
They clearly thought it wasn't their problem.
- Zikes 11y agoAs much debate as I've heard recently over what qualifies a person as an "engineer", one of the key features has always been a very strict adherence to a code of ethics. I'm starting to wonder if the title is even worth arguing over anymore.
- pjc50 11y agoIn a highly competitive job market, it's hard to have ethics that result in your unemployment. And any actual "whistleblowing" that costs businesses money can be career-destroying, life-ruining, or (in the case of Snowden) force you to flee the country. Look at how nobody's broken omerta on what actually happened in VW.
- cpncrunch 11y agoWould the people designing these products even be engineers?
- the8472 11y agoThe low-level employees can act ethically and still design unethical solutions: - development cooks up 20 different solutions, some of them containing plastic microbeads - plastic microbeads work better than no additive - plastic microbeads have the same performance as <alternative> - report concludes: "we clearly should pick <alternative>, due to similar performance and lower pollution" - management massages report: "we clearly should pick plasic microbeads since it performs equal to <alternative> and is cheaper"
- smsm42 11y agoWhich code of ethics? You're saying it as if there is and always been an objective code which says what is good and what is bad, and the choice is only to adhere to it or to be evil. I think in fact it's more like there are a tons of claims around, some true, some not, some important, some pretentious bullshit, some outright fraudulent - and one would have to navigate all this mess which also earning a living and maybe also working on stuff that is interesting. If you're unlucky, post-factum it may turn out the stuff you've worked on has horrible consequences - but I wouldn't say it is unethical unless you had full knowledge of what is going to happen. Which most people just don't. E.g. read about Thomas Midgley, Jr., who worked on both CFCs and TEL. Both proved horrible in the hindsight.
- mirimir 11y agoPharmaceuticals are another such issue. Maybe we ought to be designing for inactive metabolites. But getting drugs that work well and are safe enough is a huge challenge already, I admit. Externalities are a bitch.
- hanniabu 11y agoA friend of mine works in a Pfizer lab and tells me how the technicians are constantly pouring drugs down the normal drains because a lot of rooms don't have the special drains for chemicals. You'd think it'd be mandatory for every lab to have those special sinks. It may even be, but she tells me everybody is afraid of speaking up about that and various other safety protocols because they don't want it to affect their employment. Even if they did say something, it'll probably get stopped at management and nothing will every come of it.
- mirimir 11y agoI was thinking post-consumer. But your comment reminds me of horror stories from India. Regulation there is even less well enforced, based on what I've read.
- xkcd-sucks 11y agoIt's really not difficult to chuck waste drugs into some bleach... more likely, nobody cares.
- hanniabu 11y agoWhat does the bleach do? And she's a biomedical engineer and works with a lot of dangerous viruses both from humans and animals. So it's not just drugs that are getting put into the water sadly.
- mirimir 11y agoBleach is standard for infectious stuff. Some drugs, maybe even most, would be destroyed. But some for sure would not. Maybe chromic acid cleaning solution?